The Inflammatory Profile of Obesity and the Role on Pulmonary Bacterial and Viral Infections

Obesity is a globally increasing health problem, entailing diverse comorbidities such as infectious diseases. An obese weight status has marked effects on lung function that can be attributed to mechanical dysfunctions. Moreover, the alterations of adipocyte-derived signal mediators strongly influence the regulation of inflammation, resulting in chronic low-grade inflammation. Our review summarizes the known effects regarding pulmonary bacterial and viral infections. For this, we discuss model systems that allow mechanistic investigation of the interplay between obesity and lung infections. Overall, obesity gives rise to a higher susceptibility to infectious pathogens, but the pathogenetic process is not clearly defined. Whereas, viral infections often show a more severe course in obese patients, the same patients seem to have a survival benefit during bacterial infections. In particular, we summarize the main mechanical impairments in the pulmonary tract caused by obesity. Moreover, we outline the main secretory changes within the expanded adipose tissue mass, resulting in chronic low-grade inflammation. Finally, we connect these altered host factors to the influence of obesity on the development of lung infection by summarizing observations from clinical and experimental data.     

Learning perceptually grounded word meanings from unaligned parallel data

In order for robots to effectively understand natural language commands, they must be able to acquire meaning representations that can be mapped to perceptual features in the external world. Previous approaches to learning these grounded meaning representations require detailed annotations at training time. In this paper, we present an approach to grounded language acquisition which is capable of jointly learning a policy for following natural language commands such as “Pick up the tire pallet,” as well as a mapping between specific phrases in the language and aspects of the external world; for example the mapping between the words “the tire pallet” and a specific object in the environment. Our approach assumes a parametric form for the policy that the robot uses to choose actions in response to a natural language command that factors based on the structure of the language. We use a gradient method to optimize model parameters. Our evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of the model on a corpus of commands given to a robotic forklift by untrained users.     

Lignan contents in sesame seeds and products

Sesame seed (Sesamum indicum L.) is a rich source of furofuran lignans with a wide range of potential biological activities. The major lignans in sesame seeds are the oil‐soluble sesamin and sesamolin, as well as glucosides of sesaminol and sesamolinol that reside in the defatted sesame flour. Upon refining of sesame oil, acid‐catalyzed transformation of sesamin to episesamin and of sesamolin to epimeric sesaminols takes place, making the profile of refined sesame oils different from that of virgin oils. In this study, the total lignan content of 14 sesame seeds ranged between 405 and 1178 mg/100 g and the total lignan content in 14 different products, including tahini, ranged between 11 and 763 mg/100 g. The content of sesamin and sesamolin in ten commercial virgin and roasted sesame oils was in the range of 444–1601 mg/100 g oil. In five refined sesame oils, sesamin ranged between 118 and 401 mg/100 g seed, episesamin between 12 and 206 mg/100 g seed, and the total contents of sesaminol epimers between 5 and 35 mg/100 g seed, and no sesamolin was found. Thus, there is a great variation in the types and amounts of lignans in sesame seeds, seed products and oils. This knowledge is important for nutritionists working on resolving the connection between diet and health. Since the consumption of sesame seed products is increasing steadily in Europe and USA, it is important to include sesame seed lignans in databases and studies pertinent to the nutritional significance of antioxidants and phytoestrogens. It is also important to differentiate between virgin, roasted and refined sesame oils.     

Is the particle deposition in a cell exposure facility comparable to the lungs? A computer model approach

Abstract

Cell exposure experiments at the air-liquid interface (ALI) are used increasingly as indicators for health effects and for the impact of aerosols on the lung. Thereby the aerosol particles are kept airborne and can deposit on a cell surface area similar to the human respiratory tract (RT). However, geometry and air flow rates of an ALI system deviate considerably from the RT. As the tissue-delivered particle dose to the lungs (TD) can hardly be measured, computer models of particle deposition are used here to mimic both the particle deposition at ALI and in the RT. An ALI exposure setup (VitroCell GmbH) for an airflow rate of 100 cm³ min^?1 is selected, where the particle deposition model has been verified experimentally. For the RT we use the hygroscopic lung deposition model of Ferron et al. (2013 Ferron, G. A., S. Upadhyay, R. Zimmermann, and E. Karg. 2013. Model of the deposition of aerosol particles in the respiratory tract of the rat. II. Hygroscopic particle deposition. J. Aerosol Med. Pulm. Drug Deliv. 26 (2):101–19. doi:10.1089/jamp.2011.0965.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Model runs are performed for the particle deposition and for the deposited particles per surface area in both the ALI and the RT. The results show that the ALI-deposited mass is 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than in the alveolar region, because the surface area of the lung region is substantially larger. A particle size range from 40 to 450 nm is identified, where the ratio of both the deposition in a lung region and the deposition at the ALI varies by a factor less than two. Mean values for this ratio are 31 and 101 for the tracheo-bronchial and the alveolar region, respectively. The same size range is found for the ratio of the deposited particles per surface area in a lung region and at the ALI. For this range the mean surface deposition at the ALI is 23- and 1575-times larger than in the tracheo-bronchial and the alveolar lung region, respectively. The effect is partly compensated by different flow rate and cell size.

Copyright © 2020 American Association for Aerosol Research     

Volatile compounds of original African black and white shea butter from Tchad and Cameroon

Shea butter is used as an edible vegetable fat in many African countries. It can be utilized as a substitute or complete replacement for cocoa butter in various applications and plays an important role in traditional African medicinal practice. Although detection of volatile compounds by solid‐phase micro‐extraction gas‐chromatography mass‐spectroscopy (SPME‐GC‐MS) is a very reliable and reproducible technique, which can be used as an important part of authenticity checking, production monitoring and contamination detection, no published data about volatile compounds of shea butter are available so far. In this investigation, the characteristic volatiles in the headspace of original African shea butter samples were identified by using SPME‐capillary‐GC coupled to a mass selective detector. Almost 100 different volatile components were identified, e.g. fatty acids, saturated and unsaturated aldehydes and ketones, terpenes, and typical Maillard reaction products such as methylfuranes and pyrazines. Furthermore, the samples have been olfactorily evaluated by a panel of professional flavorists and trained analytical chemists. It can be stated that variations in processing conditions of shea butter result in considerable differences in the composition of headspace volatiles, detected by SPME‐GC‐MS and human olfaction.     

The Impact of Serial Solutions’ Summon™ on Information Literacy Instruction: Librarian Perceptions

Web-scale discovery systems, such as Serial Solutions’ Summon? Service, are replacing older federated search technologies as the tool for users to access library resources quickly and easily. The impact of Web-scale discovery systems on instruction is not known. This study of instruction librarian perceptions of Summon's impact on instruction and student information literacy skills is based on a survey. The survey reveals librarians’ ambivalence toward Summon. While some librarians agree that Summon has the potential to change the way librarians teach information literacy skills, it has not been fully integrated into the classroom.     

Affordance-based robot object retrieval

Autonomous Robots - Natural language object retrieval is a highly useful yet challenging task for robots in human-centric environments. Previous work has primarily focused on commands specifying...     

LIVING ON THE EDGE?

Housing estates, satellite cities and other formerly idealistic social housing projects are subject to certain modes of representation that often affirm the notion of centre and periphery. The analysis of two series by German photographer Tobias Zielony shot on the outskirts of Marseille, France (Quartiers Nord, 2003) and Halle, Germany (Ha Neu, 2003) shows that these representations may be challenged. By adopting a particularly individual perspective, Zielony underlines photography’s ability to inspire change in our perception of what might be marginal.     

Passive Q Switching of a Diode-Pumped 946-nm Nd:YAG Laser with 1.6-W Average Output Power

As much as 1.6-W average output power was emitted in a simple setup from a diffusion-bonded Nd:YAG rod with 70-100-ns Q-switched pulses at 946 nm and repetition frequencies between 15 and 45 kHz at 22-W incident diode-pump power. A Cr(4+):YAG crystal with a bleachable loss of approximately 2.5% and a length of 0.5 mm was used as a saturable absorber. The extraction efficiency was 47% in comparison with the continuous-wave laser output power of 3.37 W in the free-running regime.     

Sampling methods for shortest vectors,closest vectors and successive minima

We study four problems from the geometry of numbers, the shortest vector problem  (Svp)$\left(\text{<small-caps>Svp</small-caps>}\right)$, the closest vector problem  (Cvp)$\left(\text{<small-caps>Cvp</small-caps>}\right)$, the successive minima problem  (Smp)$\left(\text{<small-caps>Smp</small-caps>}\right)$, and the shortest independent vectors problem   (Sivp$\text{<small-caps>Sivp</small-caps>}$). Extending and generalizing results of Ajtai, Kumar, and Sivakumar we present probabilistic single exponential time algorithms for all four problems for all _?p${?}_p$ norms. The results on Smp$\text{<small-caps>Smp</small-caps>}$ and Sivp$\text{<small-caps>Sivp</small-caps>}$ are new for all norms. The results on Svp$\text{<small-caps>Svp</small-caps>}$ and Cvp$\text{<small-caps>Cvp</small-caps>}$ generalize previous results of Ajtai et al. for the Euclidean _?2${?}_2$ norm to arbitrary _?p${?}_p$ norms. We achieve our results by introducing a new lattice problem, the generalized shortest vector problem   (GSvp$\text{<small-caps>GSvp</small-caps>}$). ¹ We describe a single exponential time algorithm for GSvp$\text{<small-caps>GSvp</small-caps>}$. We also describe polynomial time reductions from Svp,Cvp,Smp$\text{<small-caps>Svp</small-caps>},\text{<small-caps>Cvp</small-caps>},\text{<small-caps>Smp</small-caps>}$, and Sivp$\text{<small-caps>Sivp</small-caps>}$ to GSvp$\text{<small-caps>GSvp</small-caps>}$, establishing single exponential time algorithms for the four classical lattice problems. This approach leads to a unified algorithmic treatment of the lattice problems Svp,Cvp,Smp$\text{<small-caps>Svp</small-caps>},\text{<small-caps>Cvp</small-caps>},\text{<small-caps>Smp</small-caps>}$, and Sivp$\text{<small-caps>Sivp</small-caps>}$.